George Bascombe, when he went to Paris, had no thought of deserting
Helen. But he had good ground for fearing that it might be ruinous
both to Lingard and himself to undertake his defence. From Paris he
wrote often to Helen, and she replied--not so often, yet often
enough to satisfy him; and as soon as she was convinced that Leopold
could not recover, she let him know, whereupon he instantly began
his preparations for returning.

Before he came, the weather had changed once more. It was now cold,
and the cold had begun at once to tell upon the invalid. There are
some natures to which cold, moral, spiritual, or physical, is
lethal, and Lingard's was of the class. When the dying leaves began
to shiver in the breath of the coming winter, the very brightness of
the sun to look gleamy, and nature to put on the unfriendly aspect
of a world not made for living in but for shutting out--when all
things took the turn of reminding man that his life lay not in them,
Leopold began to shrink and withdraw. He could not face the ghastly
persistence of the winter, which would come, let all the souls of
the summer-nations shrink and protest as they might; let them creep
shivering to Hades; he would have his day.

His sufferings were now considerable, but he never complained.
Restless and fevered and sick at heart, it was yet more from the
necessity of a lovely nature than from any virtue of will that he
was so easy to nurse, accepting so readily all ministrations. Never
exacting and never refusing, he was always gently grateful, giving a